[mythtv-users] problem solving help

[Brian Wood]

On Friday 12 June 2009 09:51:06 Peter Abplanalp wrote:
> sorry about the ambiguous subject but i didn't know what else to put.
>
> i've been running myth for about 5 years.  i've used only pvr-150's.  i've
> always transcoded recordings.  i've had no trouble with the system at all
> until last september.  at that time i got a hdhomerun and added it in.
> since then i've had pretty bad video artifacts in the recordings that come
> from the hdhr.  both hdhr tuners go to one machine with one disk.  i tried
> moving the hdhr between a couple of my slave backends including putting the
> hdhr tuners on different boxes but the problem persists.  i've tried asking
> on the silicondust forums and they seem to think it is a signal strength
> issue but i've set up nagios to graph signal strength and it seems to be
> ok.  also, when i watch tv on all the inputs on different boxes/tv's, the
> video comes through fine, no artifacts.  i've also tried not transcoding
> recordings thinking it was the transcoding that was introducing the
> artifacts.  didn't help.  i'm at a loss as to what i should try next.  can
> anyone suggest some things to try in order to help figure out what is going
> on here?
>
> thanks in advance,
>
> -peter

You didn't mention if your HDHR is connected to an antenna or a cable system, 
there are different types of problems you can have with the two setups.

A strong signal is not necessarily a good one. The BER (Bit Error Rate) is 
more significant than mere signal level. You might have multi-path or other 
problems.

But you say your TV sets accept the same signal without problems. Hmmm... See 
if you can find anything different in the setups of how the signal is fed to 
the sets and the HDHR. You might even be overloading the HDHR, though it's 
unlikely.

Make sure you have the latest firmware loaded in your HDHR, and that cables, 
connectors, splitters etc. are all OK.

-- 
beww
beww at beww.org